The Oregon men dropped their second-straight conference road game, falling 69-60 to the Washington State Cougars, Sunday in Pullman, Wash., to drop to 3-3 (.500) in Pacific-10 Conference contests.
The Washington State win ended a 13-game winning streak for the Ducks over the Cougars, the Pac-10’s longest such streak before Sunday.
“They battled well. They ended the streak and they had to beat us to do it,” said Oregon coach Ernie Kent in a post-game radio interview. “We did not give them the game and I thought it ended up being just a terrific college basketball game on a Sunday afternoon here in the cold Palouse.”
Oregon (12-6, 3-3 Pac-10) led for most of the game. Washington State (16-1, 4-1 Pac-10) grabbed its first lead of the game with 6:37 remaining in the second half and outscored the Ducks 14-5 in the final five minutes of play.
“We had some tough plays to make,” Kent said. “They hit some tough ones, we missed a couple tough ones, and they pulled the game out.”
The Ducks led 59-57 on two Malik Hairston free throws with just more than two minutes remaining, but the lead was to be their last as clutch free throw shooting by the Cougars combined with a sputtering Oregon offense down the stretch decided the game in the Cougars’ favor.
“We had control of the game, and then it was a nip-and-tuck game and they pulled it out in the end,” Kent said.
The Ducks were in firm control of the game early, leading by as many as 11 points in a first half in which they never trailed. The Cougars pulled within four at the half, 34-30, and were able to keep it close until the final five minutes, when they caught up and pulled away.
“I’m real proud of this basketball team because we came back from a tough loss at Washington and played great defense and I thought we played through some tough calls but that’s life on the road and that’s normal,” he said. “It was a well-played ballgame by two really good teams, and that’s life on the road… We’ve got to win on the road and we thought we could steal another one on this trip but now we’ve got to go home and protect our home court.”
Aside from the 15 turnovers the Ducks committed, Kent couldn’t find much to criticize in their performance.
“We played fantastic, we played hard. We just told them in the locker room, ‘Hey, there’s nothing we can say, they beat us. You played hard. You competed your tails off and defended like madmen.’”
But despite the Ducks’ defensive effort, Cougar guard Derrick Low seemed determined to end the Oregon winning streak, even if he had to do it all by himself. Low led all scorers in the game with 27 points on 10-of-16 shooting while adding four steals and two assists.
“Low had another fantastic game, with his willpower to not let his team lose to Oregon again before they got out of here,” Kent said.
Maarty Leunen led Oregon in scoring with 20 points and 13 rebounds. Malik Hairston was next with 14 points and seven rebounds, and Tajuan Porter had 11 points and two assists.
This week figures to be a another stiff challenge for the Ducks, as they host the No. 8 UCLA Bruins Thursday and the red-hot USC Trojans Saturday.
Kent said that he believes that if the Ducks can play at home the way they did in Sunday’s loss to the Cougars they’ll have a good chance of protecting McArthur Court, where they are a perfect 8-0 this season.
“We just need to regroup now and come back,” he said. “If we play this hard at home and play this smart at home we’re going to be OK.”
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